Mr. McCarthy's solution for Ms. Duffy ("Letters," RFT, Dec. 9) is to "marry her boyfriend or not have sex with someone who is not her spouse." He assumes that only single women want birth control and that pregnancy within a marriage is always acceptable. Married couples also use pharmaceutical birth control to delay having children for the same personal and economic reasons Ms. Duffy states. There are also those, like myself, who have chosen to remain child-free by choice. We would prefer coverage of permanent surgical procedures such as tubal ligation, vasectomy and hysterectomy regardless of age, marital status or lack of children.

Ms. Duffy and myself are not looking for insurance to cover irresponsibility, as Mr. McCarthy suggests. We would like the choice to be nonparents recognized as valid, equal and as worthy of coverage as the choice to have children.

Women are intelligent and can learn natural family planning which requires no contraceptives but a learned knowledge of their body's vaginal mucus, which tells them whether or not they are fertile.

Just because Planned Parenthood does not hire certified teachers of natural family planning doesn't mean nobody else does. Call the St. John's Mercy Hospital division of natural family planning for information. There are other centers too, in St. Louis. AWARE, founded by a group of women who decided women need something better than contraceptives, provides education at St. Anthony Medical Center.

Lorraine Bakalar

CREATURE DISCOMFORT

To the Editor:
Who cares about the residents of Town & Country's incomes? Justine Eiseman ("Letters," RFT, Dec. 16) is more concerned with deer on a "rampage." She is very concerned with the overpopulation and surplus of deer. But I wonder if the deer are concerned with the surplus and overpopulation of humans. I wonder if they are disappointed when a family has too many children that are "running wild" in the woods the deer lived in first. But Justine obviously thinks it is OK to put your home in a forest, call your new home Town & Country, and then complain about too many deer.

Ben Cody

NATIONAL LAMPOON

To the Editor:
As I follow the Clinton impeachment proceedings I am struck above all by the partisan mindlessness and utter banality of the debate on the part of both political parties. Even given that most political speech is nothing but posturing, the statements of both Democrats and Republicans have a depressingly parrotlike quality to them. Compare, for example, the impeachment debate with the Iran-contra investigation. Back then, it was Republicans who said that not all lying is wrong, that the investigation was nothing but a politically motivated witch hunt, and that the American people stood behind them. Then, it was Demo-crats who said that those who lied should face the severest of consequences, that they were doing their constitutional duty by conducting the inquiry, that they should obey the voice of conscience rather than the winds of public opinion. Blah, blah, blah.

What I have yet to hear from anyone in either party is a single word that reflects intelligence, creativity or courage. I have yet to hear one sentence that is not directly tied to the immediate self-interest of the speaker. Over the years I've learned to not expect much of politicians. The impeachment debate has done nothing to alter those expectations.

Mark Etling

To the Editor:
Excuse me! This do-nothing Republican Congress has been fornicating with prostitutes and married women for decades! How does this ship of fools have the gall to be divine-right authorities for impeachment of Bill Clinton? The pharisees! Give us some decent coverage for a change! We've had enough!

L. Jeude

To the Editor:
I believe this impeachment process is a battle this country must go through. Because in waging this battle, the GOP has decided, very clearly, to side with the Religious Right and join in their crusade to win over the moral hearts and cultural souls of the American people. And this battle will continue to be waged until we, the American people, either surrender to the dictates of conservative and fundamentalist religious dogmas or clearly reject these forces of religious fascism and intolerance.